Comments on: Tips For Young Authors by Dan Gutman

by: jde08

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:42:30 +0000

I really liked the 6 step system for the big idea as well - particularly step 6. If there’s nothing to constrain you but your imagination, you can really have some fun with writing, and that is so important. If your students find that they enjoy writing and have the freedom to be imaginative, they’ll continue to write.

by: hcampeau@taunton

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:07:56 +0000

This article gave me the inspiration to combine several elements that are required in our curriculum, specifically, myaccess, the research paper, and MCAS prompts. This article was very engaging, and I will distribute it to students before beginning the research paper. One requirement for the research paper is notecards, and the article’s suggestion to use them for fiction as well was a great idea. I will use notecards as an off-line activity for other writing assignments in the future.

by: dlogan

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:00:15 +0000

I enjoyed the article because it speaks directly to my students. It’s something I could perhaps have them read as we prepare for the Big 6 project. I love that it talks about how to organize and break down the information using notes on index cards and how important it is to search through a variety of sources to garner as much information as possible. This is such an important part of the research process and this article illustrates it nicely! It is also a very casual and encouraging tone, easy for students to read!

by: kalves

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:32:44 +0000

I really liked this article because it ties in the reaseons that we, as teachers, have our students do pre-writing activities to another, concrete way that Dan Gutman does when he writes a book. I think it’s important that kids understand the value of pre-writing and why they must organize their thoughts, and that this is truly a process. Of course, there are times when we should allow students to free -write. However, if they compile all these into a journal or notebook, then we could also use these thoughts as pre-writing. Lastly, I really liked how he gives students a simple 6-step process to do if they are having difficulty in finding their “big idea.” I think this is a great strategy because we have all encountered that student that “Just can’t think of anything to write”, and these simple steps will certainly help.